Ethan Hawke Says He Knew Robin Williams Was In 'Tremendous' Amount of Pain

Ethan Hawke says even when he was a young man starting out in acting, he had an inkling that Robin Williams was in a "tremendous" amount of pain.

"Look, this guy got me my first agent. I'm here at the Toronto Film Festival, that agent is gonna be at the premiere of Good Kill tomorrow night. We know each other because Robin called his agent and said, 'You know, I think there's somebody good on set I met and you should meet him.' I owe that to him," Hawke said on Q with Jian Ghomeshi.

Hawke worked with Williams, who passed away last month, on the Oscar-winning 'Dead Poets Society' back in 1989.

"I was 18 years old, I'd always kinda loved acting. It was kinda interesting—the way all kids kinda like to act. It was something. But Robin got in front of the class, we were shooting a scene, and he wrote, 'I sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world.' That was a scene that I was supposed to read a poem in front of the class and it was the first time in my life I have experienced the thrill of acting. The thrill of losing yourself."

"The other truth is, even at 18, it was obvious he was in a tremendous amount of pain. I don't know to what extent his whole life... anybody who was watching knew. You know, a lot of people weren't watching because he was so funny and so light, but there was a very — I think why he moved us all — there's a very serious mind there."

"He was also so sentimental, just this big sensitive heart. When we lose a great, great clown — that's what he was — there are people who are scared of that word a little bit, but he was a light for the world."

"I feel like there's an immediate sadness that is pervasive in the whole community when somebody who made all of us so happy reveals themselves to have been in tremendous personal pain."

"You know, that the happiness wasn't reciprocal. That we couldn't make him happy. I think that somehow rings to all of us."